


will you be a shipwreck or a star?

by oculeius



Series: pang [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Bodhi Rook Lives, Gen, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, POV Bodhi Rook, Post-Rogue One, Post-Star Wars: A New Hope, Pre-Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Slice of Life, Stream of Consciousness, Time Skips, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:21:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27625325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oculeius/pseuds/oculeius
Summary: 25 years have come and gone, and Bodhi can hardly remember any of it.
Relationships: Cassian Andor & Bodhi Rook, Cassian Andor & Jyn Erso & Chirrut Îmwe & Baze Malbus & Bodhi Rook, Jyn Erso & Bodhi Rook
Series: pang [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2019775
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	will you be a shipwreck or a star?

**Author's Note:**

> aka "luv tries to prove to herself that she could write a bodhi rook novel if star wars asked her to" :)
> 
> trying my hand at some... how u say... bodhi pov........ and i had a marvelous time. hoping this will tide everyone over while i work out the plot for my cont. of bodhi/reader's lil story — trying to find a way to weave rogue one into the OT that feels original/organic/not like the 12 thousand other 'rogue one lives' fics i have read!
> 
> i hope you guys enjoy :)
> 
> title from yet another caroline banger, LOOK AT ME NOW (can u tell how much i play her album while i write...)

Bodhi Rook can only _really_ remember his mother now. 

She is the one thing his mind goes back to always, even if it is jumbled from— well—

 _From the monster in Saw Guerrera’s basement_ —

 _A grip on his arms_ — _a pressure in his mind—_

“There’s a monster in the pantry,” he tells his mother, with complete conviction, one night when he is eight and had scrambled into her room after sneaking into the kitchen looking for sweets. “A sand devil.”

If Bodhi could go back he would tell his younger self _You are wrong. Monsters aren’t sandy or rabid or dry. They are wet to the touch and they move slow but still manage to catch you, and rip away every memory worth having_ —

Bodhi tries to make the best of it. Bor Gullet stole more than just the good. The bad, too, is gone. Fragmented. The muscle memory of a broken bone. Of the crack of a rod against his back. He thinks of the Empire only in his restless fits of sleep, and wakes up clutching the sheets and saying “Galen—”

 _Help me_.

He remembers the rain on Eadu only from his last visit there, and the water soaking through his poncho, the way it chilled him to the bone— it was nothing compared to seeing, to _knowing_ Galen was gone— 

To knowing the only way he could help Galen in turn. Was to _fight_. To go forward. To survive. And steal the Death Star plans. And destroy the Empire. All of it. For good.

Wait.

That last bit hasn’t happened yet. 

But soon. 

He can be brave and he can be still and he can _listen_. He’ll make Galen proud. And his mother. And his team. 

His team—

The bits and bobs of his memory, the tangled snatches of childhood and toil and family — they are pushed to the side to make room for Rogue One. For Jyn: a detailed log of every smile she throws in Bodhi’s direction. Their first encounter. Their first conversation.

( _You’re Galen’s daughter._

Of course. How did it take so long to see it? The way their mouths both turned instinctively down, as if in a perpetual grimace, a perpetual brace— 

Jyn stumbles out of the rain after Eadu, after it all, and is very still. Like Galen used to be—) 

Space is dark and it is cold and he can see it in the color of Jyn’s eyes— muddy brown in the center like Galen’s, made sharp by a cool blue at the edges—

Nothing like Cassian’s. Cassian’s are dark like his hair, like his droid’s sense of humor. But he smiles at Bodhi, too, he puts his hand on Bodhi’s shoulder—

He catches himself rubbing Bodhi’s back after a particularly long day— and he is pulling away, clearing his throat before Bodhi can even say _Don’t stop_. It reminds him of something, and he wants to chase that memory.

(There was a girl on Jedha. Or was it a boy…

Bodhi cannot remember a name but he can see long, brown hair, the same color as Cassian’s, if he works hard enough at it.

There were hands on his back, a welt where he had been struck by his CO, for insubordination—

 _My mother says I always talk so much,_ he’d started to say, before the hands moved down, and around, to his belt buckle, and it clanged to the floor and his pants were around his ankles before he could finish his thought.)

Bodhi wonders who, if anyone, will look at him the way Jyn and Cassian look at each other. He cannot remember the way his mother looked at his father, but it isn’t the monster’s doing. Time erases anything if you live long enough, and the Empire made sure to expedite that process when they first occupied Jedha.

Chirrut and Baze work to restore what time and the Empire and Bor Gullet all stole. Memories of home, what it was like to be happy and still. To not have to be brave. 

Sometimes Baze will sing. Ballads of the pilgrim moon they all called home. Stories of the heroes they came across. He wonders how many of them, of the scholars, the warriors, the jedi, how many of them are extinct — and he flinches when the voice in his gut says _all_. 

All except Luke Skywalker maybe. Stars. What it must be like to carry _that_ burden. 

Baze’s voice is lovely — deep and only a little warbly and Bodhi wonders why he won’t sing more, or louder, or in front of the rest of the crew.

One day Chirrut finally explains. “It’s a hymn,” he begins, unable to shake that same snarky tone of mischief that he uses to goad Bodhi when they train together in the gym. “For a funeral procession.” That sinks Bodhi’s heart faster than—

Than Cassian’s ship going down on Eadu— _blast_ , think of something else—

Than seeing Tonc take a blaster in the shoulder for him on Scarif? No—

Than seeing his own face after it all, after jumping out of the shuttle, his back and his chest and his left arm and the ends of his hair singed a little from that _kriffing_ grenade, that kriffing _explosion_ — after having to find another way off that planet — after Baze dragged Chirrut — _fuck,_ did he look lifeless — onto the new ship, another Zeta-Class shuttle—

“He sings it to remember them,” Chirrut continues, and it’s the only thing that _stops_ Bodhi’s mind from his _own_ remembering. Chirrut does not have to tell him who _them_ is. Because it really could be anyone. For Baze it’s most likely _everyone_. Everyone but Chirrut— 

Bodhi’s face was a mess — covered in soot, and mud, and _blood —_ his hair _caked_ in it — and with sand — so much to the point he couldn’t fucking recognize himself when they returned to Yavin. They had cleaned him up well enough, before the medicine and the painkillers and the bacta and the bandages. But bed rest was not his style. He had managed to skirt out of the med bay after a fast and loose once over from the attendants on call. 

Baze had trimmed Bodhi’s damaged, brittle ends after Scarif and before their honorate ceremony. Bodhi had insisted on his usual style and that seemed to annoy Baze, which in turn, surprised Bodhi. He didn’t take Baze for an _artist_. 

“There,” he’d said, tying Bodhi’s hair back and tugging at the fathiertail with a petty little sniff. “But I cannot do anything about your arm.”

“I know,” Bodhi had muttered back, and adjusted his shirt — one Cassian had let him borrow — over the wound he had taken great care to conceal. He’d have to visit the infirmary again. More bacta, more bandages. But the thought of something slinking around his arms, something he couldn’t control, sent his mind reeling again, memories zipping past him like—

Jedha. The rocks of Jedha — they used to be _just the fucking ground_ but the Empire’s weapon had dredged everything up, and forced it out, and killed everything in sight — the _everything_ of Jedha… falling away from him forever as Cassian’s U-Wing jumped to light speed—

25 years of life and every memory, every tangled snatch of childhood and toil and family— 

It all had to make room. For his last days on Jedha, on Eadu, on Scarif. For this new toil, and for this new family.

His new family knows he has just turned 25. On Jedha that means you’ve become a man. Chirrut and Baze tell them as much, and K-2 _of all beings_ does not think a medal from Princess Leia Organa is enough of a birthday present. _Anything_ from a princess is more than Bodhi could ever hope to ask for, and he tries to tell them all that it’s okay, it couldn’t be _more_ okay, but Rogue One is so disgustingly stubborn. Every single one of them. It’s a wonder they manage to work.

Somehow, they manage to get him sweets. A handful of figda, and some morsel-y looking things sprinkled in fine layers of sakka. “How—” he starts, and Jyn and Cassian _both_ shush him.

“Hey, Andor,” a gruff voice calls from across the hangar.

Han Solo is standing — leaning, really — on the ramp of his ship. A flickering white light washes him out from behind but Bodhi can tell he is grinning. “That’s two you owe me, Captain.” And for the first time Cassian looks flushed.

Jyn works hard to conceal her amusement. “He flirts with everyone,” Cassian mutters firmly, but he can’t look at her. 

“Who said he was flirting?” K-2 snaps, at once oblivious and scathing, and Jyn nearly doubles over.

Chirrut’s gift isn’t at all edible. He steps close to Bodhi and presses something — a muddy, rough crystal — into his hand.

“Generations of Jedha all live through you now,” Chirrut says, and it rattles Bodhi to his core. 

Baze rolls his eyes at the fact that, even as the entire rebel force squats in a temple on a humid little rock in the mid rim, Chirrut still has the nerve to stand on ceremony. He claps Bodhi on the back and he thanks the stars that he’s healed enough to take it. 

“Live well, little brother.”

Bodhi thinks about Chirrut’s words long after his impromptu birthday celebration. After the Death Star is destroyed, and he is personally invited to stay on with the Rebellion — _To do some real good_ , Cassian had said, despite a twitch in his eye that leaned towards doubt. 

Bodhi isn’t sure if Cassian doubts him, his _abilities_... or this Rebellion as a whole.

( _We’ve all done things for the Rebellion_ —

Cassian had looked so small, standing in front of the Commandos and the Pathfinders, the _spies_ , the _saboteurs_ , the _soldiers_. He had looked so weary… so _sick_ … and yet _so ready_ —

 _I’ve been in this fight since I was six years old_ —)

He and Chirrut and Baze. They’re the last of their kind. The last of Jedha, like the Princess is the last of Alderaan. But Bodhi doesn’t know how to make those lives, that _loss_ , matter. He’s just a pilot. He doesn’t know much of anything besides engines and the science of light speed, and sabacc, and Imperial protocol. His hands shake at even the _thought_ of more combat, more action. 

He thinks about Eadu, when he’d had to shoot — to _kill_ those stormtroopers, or else they would have killed Jyn and Cassian. He hadn’t given himself a moment to think. He had done what needed to be done, he hadn’t hesitated— 

What if they give him a task that he’s not strong enough to carry out?

—His fingers felt almost fused to the controls when he’d tried to let go. They’d felt so heavy, so numb — He had barely even heard K-2, _heard_ his words, but he knew the droid meant to be encouraging—

What if they want him to be like Cassian?

( _You said we just came up here to look_ — 

_I’m here,_ Cassian had spat back, already arranging his sniper against the cliff on Eadu. _I’m looking_ , he had added, as if to justify having his sniper at all— 

Bodhi still wonders if he could have saved Galen, even though Cassian had never harmed him. They’d still wasted time. Valuable time. Time they could have used.)

He thinks of his mother when he eats his candies. He clasps onto his one untouched memory of her, standing over him in the kitchen, holding his hand which was holding a knife and attempting to chop a stalk of reharb. He’d been getting better at helping, and her smile affirmed that loud and clear. 

Later that year, he remembers vaguely, she had kicked him out of the kitchen. “I can help!” he’d crowed, and that memory almost slaps him across the face with how real and _loud_ it feels. He realized later that she didn’t _want_ his help. She was making his birthday cake.

Bodhi tries to remember blowing out that flame atop the cake as he sits in darkness of his room on Yavin. He tries to remember what it tasted like as he eats his last figda. He tries to remember his mother’s smile, and wonders if she would be proud. 

He wonders what she would choose. 

There’s no question that Jyn is staying. For her, honoring her father’s wish goes further than delivering those plans, than seeing Galen’s weapon decimated. There is more to do, and she’s the best fighter the rebels are ever going to find, and— 

And then there’s Cassian.

Bodhi wonders who, if anyone, will look at him the way Jyn and Cassian look at each other. In the night sometimes he dreams of a silver ship and twin swords and soft brown lips pressed against his own—

He wakes up with a new name on his lips, and a wet spot on his sheets, and it takes him a moment to decide whether he had dreamt of the past, or the future.

Chirrut’s brown-ish crystal sits right beside his bed. All he has to do is turn his head to run right into it. He wonders if it’s from Jedha, or just a muddy little rock Baze might have found in the lake by the Rebel Base. Either way it seems to be talking to him. Asking him if he’s strong enough to stay. 

Bodhi knows if he cannot be strong then he will crash and burn. It’s only a matter of time. The fight does not end just because the Death Star is gone. The Empire isn’t gone yet.

But soon. 

He can be brave and he can be still and he can _listen_. He’ll make Galen proud. And his mother. And his team.

And _himself._


End file.
